it changes by the minute: http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html
up to 77c!!

I was a little quick to jump in :o

But you could argue the point with buying power of of the average household income or a twi.

EDIT: why am I replying to myself?

The first sign of insanity is talking to yourself. :p

bloddy hell. stupid **** car blew a fuel pump on the way up the coast today. oh well, i need to wait another week to do my 1st road race :( not happy. could have been worse i guess and let go on the freeway.

Well guys I bought a bike today. 2002 Giant OCR 2 giant link

And here is a pic
http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/588...ocr26ff.th.jpg

Yeah its not the best bike in the world but its gonna do what I want it to, and it hasnt broken the bank, and no carbon forks or shimano wheels.

:beer:

Hey Oz, we raced @ Casey Fields fer the first time yesterday.
The track's a nice layout but : no carpark, no dunnys, no shelter, howling winds and mud as far the eye can see. Most people had to carry their bikes/gear a couple of hundred metres through crap to the start and you had to wear blunnies to get there. :mad:

crikey!! I was actually thinking about saddling up yesterday, but then I saw where the race was.

Is the track tight? In other words, anti-531Aussie? :)

there's a thread on it here: http://www.cyclingforums.com/t337670.html

There's 2 hairpins - well they look like hairpins but you don't slow down for 'em, couple of other wide open turns, a snakey bit that you straight-line, two bloody great long straights and one shorter straight.
I wouldn't call it tight at all... quite 531Aussie-friendly.
It'd be awesome if they put a 30ft wall around it... the wind there is a bloody killer.

Interesting read in that link :)

eh, wind is good coz it sorts out the wheel-suckers :)

Did you race B grade?
What was the turn-out like -- were all the big guns there?
Did the wind break up the field?

How was the CCCC RR?
How was the Dirtworks (heard the course was *****)
Anyone else out there?

I raced C grade and you're right... the wind absolutely disintegrated the bunches. 2 southern riders broke away so we went after them - we being 25 odd riders - by the time we caught them, we were 8 riders... and that's how it stayed 'till the last lap when our bunch broke in two.
We lapped just about all of the dropped C graders which surprised me cos I some of 'em usually place really well. All but one of the C grade guns were there, but only 2 finished in front of me (I was 6th) - the other 3 were Southerners.

That wind though!! We were going 50+km/h away from it and around 22km/h into it and the direction meant one straight with and 2 straights against it .

Eastern, Southern and CCCC were there.

For our regular players in NSW that's Carnegie Caulfield CC, not Central Coast CC :D

Well done on yet another excellent result Odin. You'll make A grade next crit season if you keep up the excellent performances. ;)

hehe oops! I shoulda specified... there were a few CCCC jerseys floating about and...

Thanks mate :) How's the mending going?

the real CCCC road race was OK. A grade went faster again this week. How about some Master RR reports? Who won, who lost? Who went? :)

CCCC WINTER ROAD SEASON 2006 RACE #: 3
6/05/2006 Riders Total: 54

Place Name Club Time Kms Avg Spd
km/h
A GRADE 15 Starters
1 Phil Thuaux CCCC 1:11:23 50 42.0
2 Dale Scarfe CCCC "
3 Cameron Peterson Peloton "
4 Robert Hodgson North Sydney "

B GRADE 8 Starters
1 Peter Griffin CCCC 1:20:02 50 37.5
2 Gareth Thomas North Sydney "
3 Peter Wickham CCCC "
4 Ray Van Schie CCCC 1:24:09

C GRADE 19 Starters
1 James Tan Waratah Vets 1:24:26 50 35.5
2 Ross Clague CCCC 1:24:32
3 Chris Sellars Manly Warr 1:24:56
4 Chris Chapman CCCC "

D GRADE 7 Starters
1 Brad Dillon Peloton 1:27:58 50 34.1
2 Paul McDonald CCCC 1:28:03
3 Daryl Telfer CCCC 1:32:51
4 Rob Russell CCCC 1:34:00

E GRADE 5 Starters
1 Jacyn Mellish CCCC 0:44:03 25 34.1
2 Mark Downes CCCC 0:47:08
3 Sue Jordan Kooragang 0:47:13
4 David Mellish CCCC 0:51:30

ugh, im still pissed that my car broke down on the way there :(

shoulda bought a Volvo :)

why? so i can experience the joy of break down on a more frequent basis? :P

Farken 'ell it's cold. My mouse hand is blue.

400,000 kms+ and still kickin' :)

So, the big ride thing in Vicco, me and my brother-in-law convinced each other to do it. He went last year and said the 210km anti-clockwise route is the better one, I think that is Route B so it looks like I'll be down there for it.

Anyone other takers? I need someone large to draft :)

Unfortunately, the Volvo is a depressingly efficient vehicle.

Go Robbie McEwan! Wins stage 2 in the Giro. 10th place for Brownie too.

1 Robbie Mcewen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 4.51.40 (41.14 km/h)
2 Olaf Pollack (Ger) T-Mobile Team
3 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick Step-Innergetic
4 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Team Milram
5 Leonardo Duque (Col) Cofidis, le Credit par Telephone
6 Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu) AG2R Prevoyance
7 Alberto Loddo (Ita) Selle Italia-Serramenti Diquigiovanni
8 Koldo Fernandez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi
9 Axel Maximiliano Richeze (Arg) Ceramica Panaria-Navigare
10 Graeme Brown (Aus) Rabobank

I was listening out for an incomprehensible scottish brogue. Shame you couldn't make it. Important things come first though.

As for me, well thank gawd but I made it. Reached the half way hut feeling great at about 2:40 in so I was doing a good pace. My first mistake (okay going a bit to hard without enough training probably was) was stopping there to refill my camelbak (I ran out of water at the end of the race so lucky I stopped). Got back on the bike and my left hammy cramped up straight away. Fought the bloody thing for the entire rest of the race. Still felt like I had more to give energy wise, but anytime I tried to push on it'd be cramp city. Riding up hills was an annoying juggling act of actually getting up them, and relaxing enough to keep the cramps away. Flats were okay, and I was as fast as anyone down the hills.

Course was completely farked. First half was a little bit of sand, and a ****load of rocks. I think I broke my arse. Second half was a stupid big hill we had to carry our bikes up, then just sand, sand, sand. I've never ridden on so much sand in my life. On the last big downhill, theyd graded the thing before the race and by the time I got through there it was just 6 inch deep sandy ****. Bloody hair raising hooting down the hill at a gazillion miles and hour thought this rutted stuff, jumping the drainage banks and praying to jaysus that when I landed I wouldn't dig in and smash myself to bits.

If I look at my heart rate graph and compare it to the Alpine Classic where I bombed out, I actually went a lot harder in this. Ride times were almost the same but average heart rate was 150 compared to alpines 137. While I was doing it I was telling myself I'd never ride another bike again. A day later I'm pleased I did it and looking forward to doing it again.

Good work Saccy. Riding through cramp is a mission, but satisfying to finish despite it.

Well done saccy, I heard the course was a bit naff, Sounds like the Fling was way better!
Hows the drivetrain? nice and grindy?

Oh, btw, while thinking about my sore arse. I'd love to know who were the idiots who thought making hardtails out of aluminium was a good idea. They need their heads kicked. It just doesn't make sense. They put flash forks on the things but you can really use them because you're getting kicked like a mule from the rear end. It's unbalanced.

My old cromo rigid Trek had a cromo fork that beat me up, but the rear end was beautifully compliant. You could feel it flexing on the big hits and the little hits never seemed to be an issue. It would make much more sense to have that nice compliant rear end of my trek mated to a good fork.

Combine the rear end of my old trek with the front end of my Giant and it'd be a beautiful bike. So what if it was even a kg heavier? On that ride yesterday, weight wasn't a factor, but getting beaten up certainly was. Can't wait to bust this alu POS so I get move the bit's over onto some cromo goodness.

hee hee, steel MUST be real saccy. God job for getting it done in those conditions !!